YOUNG GUNS NOW AIM FOR MASTERS.

Byline: Dave Shelburne

They call it the Masters, but watch out for the apprentices this week when golf's finest players take aim at one of their game's most-treasured titles.

You simply cannot ignore the impact of the young guns anymore, even on the hallowed grounds of Augusta National GC, where the 60th Masters tournament begins today.

Consider: Four of the last five PGA Tour events have been won by first-time winners, and it took a sensational closing charge by one of the world's best players to prevent a 5-0 sweep.

What two-time PGA Player of the Year Fred Couples really accomplished with his eagle/birdie/miracle-recovery shot finish two weeks ago at The Players Championship was to give the game's established stars one fewer nonwinner to worry about.

Tommy Tolles, a four-year Nike Tour veteran who is the PGA Tour's hottest player, was denied victory and a Masters berth by Couples' closing surge. Tolles, 29, needed to win one tournament to qualify for Augusta and couldn't quite do it. He finished second after leading almost throughout the final three rounds of the TPC, an event that annually attracts most of the world's top players and which many regard as the unofficial fifth major.

But when Tolles - who has played in the final twosome at the last three tournaments - turns on his TV for this week's action, he'll find plenty of talented Masters rookies to watch.

Tim Herron, the 26-year-old mudder who started the first-time-winner run in a rainstorm at the March 7-10 Honda Classic, will tee it up today in Augusta, Ga.

So will former Long Beach substitute teacher Paul Goydos, 31, who followed Herron with a win in the March 14-17 Bay Hill Invitational.

Next came Scott McCarron, the 30-year-old four-year Nike Tour veteran who helped UCLA win the NCAA title in 1988. He held off eight-time major champion Tom Watson and third-place Tolles to win the March 21-24 Freeport-McDermott Classic.

Couples slowed the charge of the wunderkinder the next week in the TPC, but only after erasing Tolles' two-stroke lead in the final three holes.

Last week, it was former Oxnard High School star Paul Stankowski, 26, who had been playing on the Nike Tour one week earlier. He made the jump from Triple-A to the majors seem easy enough by winning both on weekends - capturing the PGA BellSouth Classic in a playoff seven days after placing first in a Nike event in Louisiana.

What chance will Harron, Goydos, McCarron and Stankowski have at Augusta?

Better, for sure, than the not-quite all-luckless Tolles, whose 3-2-5 finish of the past three weeks earned him $439,000 - about 70 percent as much as Hall of Famer Sam Snead earned in a PGA career that produced a record 81 victories.

The first-timers might fare better, also, for the way their numbers have grown so quickly. What looked like a brief breakthrough when Herron won has mushroomed into a continuing boost for other nonwinners.

Herron's victory became Goydos' confidence, and Goydos made a believer out of McCarron, who inspired Tolles - who more than anything seemed just to have run out of time this year. His driving length and putting ability make him a strong candidate for future Masters.

And after Tolles missed his final qualifying chance Sunday, he saw the last pre-Masters tournament decided by a playoff between two previous nonwinners, with Stankowski advancing to Augusta by a sudden-death win over Brandel Chamblee.

Masters history, the enormous pressure of this particular major and Augusta's treacherous greens seem enough to preclude any more first-win magic this week.

Fuzzy Zoeller (in 1979) is the only player to win his first PGA tournament in this event. The greens are scary - fast enough to worry even defending champion Ben Crenshaw - who didn't three-putt once in winning at Augusta last year. Then, there's the strongest, most-distinguished field of the year, which includes few who have never won a PGA event.

But considering Tiger Woods, New Zealand's Michael Bradley and Scotland's Colin Montgomerie are among the nontour winners, this first-timer run just might stretch another week.

Upcoming tournaments:

American Diabetes Association Golf Classic: Monday at MountainGate CC, Bel Air. Singer-songwriter Johnny Mathis is honorary chairman. Entry fee $350 per player. Information: [phone].

Kaiser Permanente Chinatown Service Center Golf Classic: April 22 at Montebello GC. Entry fee $700 per foursome. Scramble format. Information: [phone].

Orthopaedic Hospital Golf Classic: April 29 at Oakmont CC, Glendale. PGA Hall of Famer Paul Runyan will host the best-ball event and demonstrate his short-game skills. Entry fee $300. Information: [phone].

MEMO: Dave Shelburne is a Daily News staff writer. The golf column appears Thursdays.